Barcelona

Barcelona was our first official rest
stop. Two weeks. Oma and Papa joined us. We rented a lovely
apartment and endeavored to take it easy.

Our apartment, okay, it was a lot nicer than this photo implies!

The internet bench in front of the grocery store:

Anika showing Papa her latest Scratch game.

Random City Sites:

Antonio Gaudi's Barcelona

Antonio Gaudi designed many of the older building in Barcelona, and was
clearly a huge influence on architecture in the city. He worked in the mid
to late 1800s, building organic curvy structures out of concrete. Here are
a couple examples, from around town:

Familia Sagrada Church

Gaudi's dream building was a church he
designed and called the Familia Sagrada. Work on this church began in 1888,
and continues today. It is anticipated that it will be completed it
in the next 30 years. It is huge!

GuŽll Park

Gaudi dreamed up a planned city,
which he started to build. The city failed, but what he had built became a
beautiful park, which is affectionately known as the Dr. Seuss Park, which is a
little odd, as it predates Dr. Seuss.

The Bus Tour

We found this bus going up the big
street next to our apartment, so one day, we got on.

The Miro Museum

Gee, this one looks familiar...

There is the whole
crew, sans photographer, though perhaps the fig-leafed Frenchman could stand in
for him.

Anika's Birthday

Halloween

The Boat Show

The dream boat...

The Zoo

In preparation for our Africa legs,
Tasha and Anika were practicing their photography... The objective on
this outing was making sure the eyes were in focus while composing the photo. And this one takes the prize:

What a perfect shot, Tasha!

From Barcelona we flew to Madrid
(since Iberia has discontinued the Barcelona-Cairo flight we had originally booked).
From Madrid, we spent a day waiting for our lost luggage and then took a train
down to Algeciras. From Algeciras we took a day trip to
Gibraltar. Then we took a ferry over to
Tangier, Morocco and the train down to Marrakech.